September 7, 2021
This month we’ve been giving the Fanatic studio a facelift, producing
some innovative development work and, most exciting of all, seeing
each other in person for a much-needed social!
With so many team changes recently (we waved Becks off on Maternity Leave, said bye to our Digital Lead Joe and welcomed Stathis and Alex as new marketing recruits all in the past month), not to mention the lack of face-to-face contact during the pandemic, it was lovely to get the whole team together last week for a meal.
It was a great introduction for the newer members of the team, and a long-awaited chance to experience Fanatic that wasn’t through a computer screen. There also may or may not have been shots of absinthe, but the less said about that the better…
Our Senior Designer Sam has been busy creating a hand-drawn and painted mural on the wall of the Fanatic studio. It celebrates the annual Fanatic T-Shirt Competition, where the whole team are invited to submit designs and the winning one is printed on t-shirts for everyone.
Over the course of a few weeks, Sam sketched out the wording and the placement of the t-shirts, before filling in the design with the Fanatic colours. The mural sits above our sofa corner, where we can now admire it during meetings!
Konzepthaus asked us to make some updates to their site that we originally built last summer. The new features include commenting functionality on their individual blog and podcast pages, improved course filtering on the Academy page, updated course pages and a new media section for the home page to preview featured podcasts, reports, staff spotlights, jobs, events, blogs and courses together in one space.
These tasks posed some interesting challenges, such as using AJAX to filter through different courses on the academy page and to make the course pages more interactive and dynamically show different content on the page. The inclusion of commenting functionality also required us to set up a custom user registration/login portal so that users could sign up in order to leave comments. We integrated this portal with the Nextend Social Login plugin that allows users to sign up using their Google or Facebook accounts.
Our favourite talk was the one from Oliver Brett at Screaming Frog. It was called ‘Spilling the T in E-A-T’ and was all about making your site and your brand a more trustworthy resource for your audience. Oliver went through his 6-point plan for a reliable site, which included a sanity check, collecting data, examining outliers, competitor analysis, a UX review and signposting trust.
Ever since Google’s latest Core Update, which had a focus on the Trust part of E-A-T, we’ve been thinking about new ways to make our clients’ brands more reassuring and confident. We’ll be trying out Oliver’s plan to see if it has any effect on factors such as bounce rate, time on page and ultimately, the number of conversions.
How have you found life at Fanatic so far?
It is great! Everyone is very friendly and helpful, with an excellent work ethic. And the projects I am working on so far are as interesting as they are challenging. I couldn’t have asked for more.
What were you doing before Fanatic and what made you get into Digital Marketing?
Before joining Fanatic, I worked as a marketing and communications coordinator for a software company here in Bristol. Before that, I had done every job imaginable, from bartender to special education teaching assistant.
What drove me to digital marketing was the fact that it combines creativity with research and analytical skills. It makes both your brain hemispheres work equally hard.
What made you choose Fanatic?
I felt from the start that Fanatic would be an excellent environment for my professional development and a perfect opportunity to work on a variety of clients and projects. Also, I really liked Fanatic’s portfolio and the way they approach each project. And after I met Ian, Milly, and Amy during my interview, I was pretty sure I would like the people there as well.
What have you enjoyed most so far?
Being back to an (amazing) office after more than a year of working from home and interacting with (amazing) colleagues in real life. Also, my first social with the Fanatic team was great fun.
What are you looking forward to learning more about?
I am looking forward to honing my PPC skills, and I have excellent support from our team lead, Alex and the rest of the marketing team.
What’s an interesting fact about you?
Although I don’t look like one, I am a classically trained musician with a PhD in composition.
